Five found dead in house blaze

ROCK HILL -- Two adults and three children were found dead after firefighters extinguished a blaze at a house near Lake Wylie early Monday, authorities said.

York County Sheriff Bruce Bryant called the fire suspicious and said the deaths were being investigated as homicides.

The fire was reported about 3 a.m., sheriff's Capt. Glenn Williams said. The victims appeared to be members of a family, he said.

All five bodies were found in the same room, Bryant said. He would not release the names of the dead until their identities had been confirmed.

Bryant said officials were unable to immediately determine a cause of death. Autopsies were scheduled for Monday evening.

"This appears to be suspicious," the sheriff said. "This house was engulfed from one end to the other."

A dog brought in by the State Law Enforcement Division found accelerant in the remains of the charred home, leading authorities to believe the fire was intentionally set from inside.

Williams said the father was charged July 16 with two counts of a lewd act on a child involving his 14-year-old daughter. The alleged incidents happened at the family's previous residence in Fort Mill, about 10 miles away, Williams said.

As of July 16, the state Department of Social Services ordered the man not to live with the rest of the family, authorities said. The father had told officials he was staying in Charlotte, N.C., where the family's relatives lived, but Bryant said the man's pickup truck was sitting outside the home when firefighters arrived.

York County is in the north-central part of the state near the North Carolina line.

The sheriff said it didn't appear the family tried to escape during the blaze.

Two children were found in one bed and one child was found in a second bed. The two adults were found on the floor.

Neighbors said they heard a loud bang and saw flames coming from the house. They called the fire department, but the house was engulfed in flames when the Newport Fire Department arrived, Williams said.

"There were flames coming out the front bedroom window and smoke coming out the back," said Randy Wolfgang, 41, who lives next door.

Authorities said the noise probably was a large window exploding.

Wolfgang said after his wife heard the boom, he grabbed a flashlight and ran out his front door. He hopped over a short fence separating the yards and tried to get to the house, but the heat was too intense.

"In my mind, if there would have been an opportunity to do something ... but there was no way," Wolfgang said. "There was so much crackling and glass breaking you couldn't hear anything."

Wolfgang said his three children sometimes played with the two girls and one boy who lived in the house.

Residents in the middle-class neighborhood said the family was renting the house and had moved in around late November. They said the family was Hispanic, possibly from Central America, and the children spoke better English than their parents.

Stephanie Long, 31, lives across the street. She said the family usually kept to themselves but she often saw them dressed up, headed to church on Sundays.

"It's like something that happens to someone else, not here in this quiet neighborhood," she said.

Long said she recently had seen the father driving down the street in his truck. He'd stop in the road and stare at the house for a while before finally driving away, she said.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was on the scene to assist local and state authorities.